THE boss of a Glasgow-based charity supporting refugees and asylum seekers is calling on the UK to do more to support people caught up in the migrant boat crisis.

John Wilkes, chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council, wants the newly formed Westminster Government to welcome more refugees to the country as well as addressing the lack of resources in place to save people, who are often forced to flee countries by boat.

To date this year there an estimated 1,829 people have drowned while crossing the Mediterranean Sea from countries such as Libya.

Mr Wilkes has called on Europe to re-instate the Mare Nostrum rescue operation which was axed last year.

It came after Home Secretary Theresa May last week argued economic migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe should be returned home.

Mr Wilkes said: "At the moment the focus has been on stopping people starting the journey in the first place. I think it's pretty unrealistic. People make these sorts of journeys not necessarily through choice.

"There's a lot of talk about the sort of people who travel over the Med and some of them are economic migrants who want to come to Europe to build a better life.

"But in 2014 43% of those who travelled across the Med were classed as refugees.

"So there's a huge proportion coming across who are probably going to be covered by the refugee convention."

Mr Wilkes said as a matter of urgency the country needed to give resources to search and rescue operations and "go back to Mare Nostrum system that existed before which many nations including the UK pulled out of last year".

The number of people crossing the sea is likely to go up during the summer months.

Mr Wilkes said: "There has to be a much more coordinated response to helping these frontline countries - Italy, Spain, Malta and France.

"They're taking these people in and I think it's right that Europe has a coordinated approach, either helping to support them in Italy or Malta or agreeing to take some of them.

"And giving them space to claim asylum. It's not a crime to claim asylum, it's in the UN declaration of Human Rights.

"People are entitled to put that claim in and have it assessed."

Theresa May said that the UK Government intended to reject any proposals for a mandatory system of resettlement because it would only encourage economic migrants.

Newly elected Gordon MP and former First Minister Alex Salmond hit out, saying Britain should be part of the European effort to find homes for the refugees fleeing persecution and poverty in North Africa.

Mr Salmond said the UK state should take its "fair share", which would equate to around 60,000 refugees.

Mr Wilkes added Glasgow and the West of Scotland should be "proud" of how they have supported asylum seekers, but that more could be done.

He said: "Glasgow's had a very proud track record of general asylum dispersal.

"There were problems in the early days but the Scottish Government, city council and agencies have come together in the last 10 years or so to build a much more effective response to dealing with people."

He said neighbouring countries - often in an unstable state themselves - to war-torn areas bore the brunt of asylum seekers.

Mr Wilkes said: "Lebanon has seen a quarter of it's own population from Syria.

"That would be equivalent to Scotland having 1.25million people cross the border in the space of a year and having just to cope with that.

"All the refugee kids have been incorporated into the Lebanon school system.

"When you put it into those sorts of contexts the number of people that the UK deal with is astonishingly small.

"And as a wealthy nation even in these constrained times that's the matter of proportion and playing our role as a global citizen."